The 27 April marks the 262nd anniversary ofthe birth of feminist foremother MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Unity Arts’ film HACKNEY DISSENT is being shown as part of the
NEWINGTON GREEN MEETING HOUSE are hosting a series events to mark this milestone
https://www.ngmh.org.uk/events/category/events
You can also find out more about Mary on our resources page
and watch the fascinating interview with Professor Anna Birch here
And our online exhibition VINDICATION here
As we remember Mary Wollstonecraft throughout September here is a wonderful interview with Professor Anna Birch about the life and legacy of the author of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman.
Anna has been a great supporter of Unity Arts and here she was in April on Newington Green last year giving a talk at our Hackney Dissent event which was celebrating Wollstonecraft’s 260th Birthday.
As she mentions during the film her company Fragments & Monuments created WOLLSTONECRAFT WALKS APP a great outside research activity during these strange times.
The interview was conducted by Ellen Gage one the researchers from the Heritage Team who is currently working on a paper looking at the travel writing of Wollstonecraft.
Ellen wrote a blog about the research, filming an interview process for us here Behind The Scenes With Anna Birch
The film was shot and edited by Neil Webster with the support of the Unity Arts Digital Outputs Team, including Christian Mahier-Smith and is part of our National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project BLUE CIRCLE OF DISSENT.
Newington Green Meeting House is now open to the public after extensive restorative build work. They are inviting the public to explore the elegantly renovated building and learn about the fascinating people and events that shaped its revolutionary history.
Tours are approximately 30 minutes long and then you are free to explore the space, exhibitions and audio guide yourselves. The building is fully wheelchair accessible.
Please help them cater the tour towards your interest and needs of the group by answering all the questions when booking.
is hosted by NEWINGTON GREEN MEETING HOUSE
After a year of various events and activities these are responses to our participants’ research into the writings and letters of Mary Wollstonecraft. Famously the author of A Vindication Of The Rights of Woman and a radical, a dissenter and a champion of the education of girls.
A Hackney Heroine who lived in Hoxton, had a school in Newington Green, worshipped at the Unitarian Church (now Newington Green Meeting House) and was married and first buried in Old St Pancras Church in King’s Cross.
Our first “public” event during the pandemic with a careful and socially distanced planning and setting up in August and filmed by Steve .
Many of the pieces have been created during the Covid-19 pandemic and come out of online workshops and one to one socially distanced meetings with the researchers and artists.
Our thanks to Newington Green Meeting House that have made this installation possible by welcoming us as their first 360 virtual event.
Before you take the VINDICATION tour you can find more detail on the artists’ work here
Click to access vindication-holding-booklet.pdf
And the Wollstonecraft Timeline here
If you want to see the exhibition as part of a tour of Newington Green Meeting House book a slot here
We are continuing to implement the online research, activities and events measure until September.
We have been busy however.
There have been submissions of responses to the An Essay on The Writings and Genius of Shakespear by Elizabeth Montagu
Here is an example from Priscilla Olympio
Phoebe Monologue – AS YOU LIKE IT
For more info in how to submit these outputs follow this link
Show Us The Genius Of Shakespeare – Elizabeth Montagu Study
We are continuing work on the preparation of STEWY installation at home and delivered paints, felt-tips, and hard copies.
You can download the PDF and we will collect the coloured in sheets after lockdown has been lifted and deliver workshops to complete the piece for exhibition.
Some of our participants made personal solo visits to Wollstonecraft sites on her birthday including laying flowers at her monument at St Pancras Old Church
We partnered with Newington Green Meeting House in their online Wollstonecraft birthday events and supported the launch of the new WOLLSTONECRAFT WALKS APP by one of our heritage partners, Fragments & Monuments, in collaboration with Scary Little Girls
We are continuing work on our digital outputs including the edit of the interview with Professor Anna Birch – supported by Neil Webster from Edwin Louis Fear Films. We have started the edit of the book of community produced poetry Hackney Dissent and the heritage booklet Blue Circle Of Dissent.
In addition we are building a YouTube channel containing ALL our filmed outputs over the last 10 years.
If you need materials or support with your at home research or are new and would like to know more about this project, please contact us via the form below.
We would like to remember our local Hackney heroine today. philosopher, radical, and author of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary was born in Spitafields on April 27 1759
She set up a school in Newington Green (a hotbed of Dissent) and for a time lived in Hoxton.
For more information here is a Wollstonecraft Timeline with illustrations
As part of the NLHF project BLUE CIRCLE OF DISSENT we are creating an installation based on the STEWY graffiti artwork that will be back on the wall at New Unity once the building re-opens.
So for any that want to contribute to that installation print off and
colour in this stencil and we will collect at the end of lockdown and add to our laminates which hopefully will be hung in September 2020 at New Unity
There are more Wollstonecraft Resources here!
WOLLSTONECRAFT WALKS APP has been launched today by one of our heritage partners, Fragments & Monuments, in collaboration with Scary Little Girls
Today is of course the 261st birthday of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and the app focuses on the life and times of Wollstonecraft and her impact on women, politics and 21st century society and culture. You’ll discover secrets about Mary, her life and her Green!
In the app you can find:
WOLLSTONECRAFT WALK GUIDE: Take a guided audio walk around Newington Green stopping off at significant locations (The Cobblers, Newington Green School, Lady Mildmay pub) and
listen to the words of iconic feminist writers whilst hearing about the herstory of Newington Green.
Podcasts – hosted by Marina Garvey Birch and Erica McKoy:
speaking to local people about their experience of the walks, readings from Maya Angelou, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Michelle Obama
BTS convo with Anna Birch (Fragments & Monuments) and Rebecca Mordan (Scary Little Girls).
Fragments & Monuments performance and film archive (2000-2020)
School Assembly resources
‘We are confident this brand-new app will bring our historical neighbour Mary Wollstonecraft back to Newington Green
for a new audience. The Green is where Wollstonecraft set up a school for girls in 1784.’
Professor Anna Birch, Artistic Director Fragments & Monuments
“Everyone is talking about these unique walks, are they worth the hype? Yes!” The Independent
From our at home activities, here is a response to where we all find ourselves during lockdown by one of the poets from Hackney Dissent, Billy Colvill.
Urban Bird in- Covid 19
“ Ring-a-ring of roses
A pocketful of posies
Atishoo, a tissue?
We all full down.”
This is purdah.
Just spent my daily allowance of
Essential journey time.
I loiter at the cross-roads
To my room
Full of possible intent
But know it`s lockdown facing me,
Splendid isolation.
Have to keep slapping myself,
“ Wake up and smell the coffee.”
I must have been asleep
When my carnival of people passed on by.
I want my bumping, bustling, sweaty, shoving,
Rude, insulting crowd
Back.
Everyone has become, “so kind,”
So loving, so polite.
And when those people
Who wouldn`t ordinarily give me the time of day
Say they want to befriend me,
It`s been my experience they want to shamelessly exploit
My singular native English nostalgic sentimentality.
Then there`s that class of people who
In the blink of an eye
Voted your wage rise down, voted to
Leave you homeless,
They in one voice speak through antiseptic,
Praising heroes who work a twelve
And a half-hour shift at their bidding
Without a paid break or proper equipment.
As if the “ heroes” weren’t in danger enough.
How our leaders bang on how much
They love and care for the people,
Stop it, my ears are bleeding
Where`s your London mob when you need them?
The riot of colour? The noise?
What was I moaning about?
Dragging my feet back to my room,
right now, if I had the chance
I`d Jump in and join my herd
For the company and banter
Even though by all accounts
My government is leading the herd to the abattoir.
The instruction,
Writ large by the invisible hand of Capital
For only the privileged to see
Based on the witty professors
Statistical probability,
The instruction is,
That for us the masses,
The question, who lives or dies,
Is for us the masses,
A charitable post-code lottery.
The invisible hand of Capital
Signs off;
“ England is now one big Grenfell Tower.”
I swear on the Roman London god of birds, Janus,
Fuck it,
Even after all what my families been through
There is still no science for us, so it`s
still down to more
luck than judgement.
Back in my room
The weight of the world wears heavy on me.
I think of someone, I wonder,
Have they been tested yet?
Billy Colvill ( One is A Bird. 2020. Billy Colvill.)
Unity Arts have been invited to contribute their installation piece based on the STEWY graffiti art portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft as part of the re-opening of New Unity at Newington Green (where she ran a school for girls).
Originally the artwork was to be installed in New Unity for April and also form part of our event this April 27 on Wollstonecraft’s birthday.
We have had to cancel our Easter workshops when we were to finish the work on the installation but everyone who enjoys colouring in can still do some of the work at home. Especially children. (Colouring in will also lower your blood pressure).
Our work on this piece started on Wollstonecraft’s birthday last year and has since seen contributions from the Dissenter’s Choir, Hoxton Hall Youth Group, during the Summer Workshops at the Diorama Arts studio and by pupils from William Patten school.
All levels welcome.
Download the Wollstonecraft Timeline with illustrations to learn about why Wollstonecraft is a subject for this project
And the STEWY A4 Colouring in Sheet
Please contact us via the form below and we can keep you posted about the progress of the piece, organise the collection of artwork and of course invite all artists to the opening in September!
Unity Arts London 